On January 20th, an email was sent out to the UW Employees contact list by Vivek Goel, President and Vice-Chancellor, and James W. E. Rush, Vice-President, Academic and Provost, to provide employees the chance to give feedback on the February return to campus plan. In text, the email was addressed to the UW Community. Didn't get that email as a graduate student worker (i.e., TA or RA)? Guess you aren’t considered a UW Employee.
Protecting the health and safety of all attendees, organizers, and the broader community is of the utmost importance to OrganizeUW. While our union drive has been almost entirely digital for over a year, we have slowly begun holding more in-person events as public health restrictions allow and best practices shift. This post outlines the current safety procedures in place for organizers and visitors at all in-person events, in accordance with current local and provincial public health restrictions. Please take note of these measures when planning your visit!
What protections will be needed to make it safe to re-open (in part or full) at UW? A discussion among health and safety experts, grads, and student leaders from OrganizeUW, CUPE, McMasterU, and UW on COVID-19 realities and best practices for those working on campus now or set to return in a few short months (or less!).
OrganizeUW calls out the University of Waterloo with new survey data suggesting graduate students are doing much worse now than before the start of the pandemic
UW recently offered a two-day "scheduled pause" to encourage wellness during the pandemic, which made us curious - were you actually able to take some much-needed time off? And have you generally felt well-supported by UW during COVID-19? What do you think UW should be doing to support graduate students, that they're not? Please take our anonymous 5-minute survey and let us know!
Join OrganizeUW, a CUPE Health & Safety expert, and a CUPE 3903 (YorkU) local member and bargaining rep as we discuss the opportunities union organizing presents for improving mental health on campus.
The next blog post in our #WhyNotWaterloo series -- which explores the difference a union *really* makes -- examines quarantine packages for international students coming to UW in January 2021. Did you know that graduate TAs at other Ontario universities are able to quarantine through their university for free, whereas UW is charging over $1000? But #WhyNotWaterloo? Read on to find out more.
OrganizeUW is concerned that the uWaterloo administration is not communicating relevant health and safety information to graduate student workers and sessional instructors.